


Beach Grass

by gouguruheddo



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Happy Eruri, M/M, Oceans, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 02:37:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8693095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gouguruheddo/pseuds/gouguruheddo
Summary: The war is over, and Erwin and Levi build a cottage next to the ocean.





	

A vase sits on the desk with beach grass in it. It doesn’t smell, and it doesn’t particularly look nice, but they have a desk and a vase and Levi figures one plus one equals two, so therefore it works. 

He has stopped fussing over Erwin’s papers. The man is a controlled mess; the type of man that sees order in his micro-universe of chaos. The rule is that the clutter doesn’t leave the desk, and Levi supposes the vase adds to the clutter, but it allows him to control the twitch that tweaks his nose when he sees the mountains of paper sprawled across the driftwood surface. With a slight smile, he admits to himself that he enjoys it--that he enjoys the idea of having a home that looks lived in. Having a home at all. Above ground. Miles away from the wall. On the beach.

After the war, they had to relearn everything. Or rather, they had to learn at all. Erwin took all the books he could from the capital, and bought as many as he could along the the way to their new home. Bookshelves line the walls of their small cottage, brimming with knowledge they could utilize now. There’s at least a dozen books about architecture and construction on the shelves, their pages torn and ragged and sometimes soiled with droplets of blood from miscutting pieces of wood. They built the cottage together, but it took them nearly a year. During that time, they lived in a tent along the tree line, walking nearly a mile every day to work on their project. Some days Erwin stayed at the tent and checked their traps or tended their small garden while Levi worked. Some days they stayed around a campfire and sang songs with wine on their breath. Some days they took the horses into the nearest town ten miles away to refresh supplies. 

People started forgetting about them--about their ranks and who they used to be before there was peace. Levi is an artisan, and he’s gaining a small amount of recognition in their community for his fine crafted whittled pieces of driftwood. He likes working with his hands, as it gives his hands something to do, because otherwise they never stop shaking. It’s nice that people can afford to buy trinkets again, he thinks. He also likes that people have stopped seeing him as a living legend. He loves that Erwin receives smiles and small talk instead of angry fists clutched around stones.

They have a home, and they worked hard for it, and it’s theirs. In it, Erwin writes, and that’s how the desk gets messy. His handwriting is improving as his piles of papers grows, scarcely leaving his desk from dawn until dusk, sometimes right up until the wax on the candles melts to the candleholder. He writes about the war. He writes about his strategies, his theories, his plans. He writes about the decisions he made and the reasons behind them. He talks about Levi, and Eren, and Armin, and the veterans and the men he never learned the names of. Sometimes he sits at the desk intending to write, but gets lost looking out the window, watching the ocean waves roll and lap at the shore. He doesn’t notice the sun coursing across the sky, and he complains when he takes a sip of his tea.

“Why’d you give me cold tea?”

“I gave it to you two hours ago.” Levi looks up from his book, his eyebrow arched.

“Hm,” is all Erwin says.

Levi shifts in his chair and closes his book. “I’ll make you a fresh one.” 

Levi lifts himself out of the chair and starts to walk past Erwin, but Erwin stops him with his one hand on Levi’s hip and drags him into the best embrace he can give. “I love you.”

Arms draping over broad shoulders, Levi presses his forehead to Erwin’s and lets a smile cross his lips. They smile more now. Levi even learned how to laugh sometimes. He says words he never could say before, because even though it’s been a hard habit to break, he knows that if Erwin goes into town, he’ll come home safe. “I love you, too.” His lips caress the soft hair on top of Erwin’s head, and he smells like pine and sea salt, and he could never imagine a smell that smelled more like freedom.

Levi pinches the side of Erwin’s neck between his fingers and sways away from his partner, his knee being lightly supported by the chair between Erwin’s legs. “Hange mailed us. Says she wants to come visit.”

Erwin’s looking at him with eyes as clear as the sky, and he smiling with brightness that contradicts the horrors that still plague his thoughts. “Do they now? How did they find where we were?”

“I have my ways.”

Erwin chuckles as he pulls down the collar of Levi’s tank top and kisses along the collarbone. “I don’t doubt that for a second. When do they want to come?”

“Soon,” Levi says, his hands moving up to till golden hair between his fingers.

“We should catch some pheasant and roast it in the pit.”

“I was thinking,” Levi says, his words sound lofty and soft, like he can’t believe he’s having this conversation. Like he’s in a dream. “I’ve been reading about fishing rods. Next time we go to town, I can pick up some supplies and make one. Then we can catch some fish in the bay.”

Erwin smiles as he rests his cheek on Levi’s chest and pulls him close to his own. “I’m better with a net.”

“Then I’ll make you a net.”

“I can’t wait, then.”

The light turns orange across the cottage and across their skin. It smells like salt water all the time, but they don’t even notice. They’re tan and healthy, and the bands of confinement imposed by their harnesses have since faded away. They are new men, but some habits are still hard to break. They kiss like it’s the last time they ever will.


End file.
